We wrote to our tenants and leaseholders to advise of these changes, and you can read the letter here - Housing letter September 2024.

If you have any questions about the consumer standards and the contents of the letter, please check the FAQs below to see if it has already been answered:

What are the consumer standards, and how do they affect me?

The government has introduced new consumer standards for social housing providers. These aim to ensure you have a safe, secure, and well-maintained home, with clear communication and good service from your landlord.

There are four new consumer standards:

• The Safety and Quality Homes Standard: focuses on ensuring that as your landlord we understand the condition of all of our homes and make use of that data to provide safe, quality homes.
• The Transparency, Influence, and Accountability Standard: the standard requires us  to be transparent with our tenants, treat you fairly and respectfully and ensure you can voice concerns where necessary, influence decisions, and hold us accountable.
• The Neighbourhood and Community Standard: means we will ensure our tenants live in secure, well-maintained neighbourhoods and feel safe in your homes.
• The Tenancy Standard: This standard outlines fair allocation and letting of our properties, as well as requirements for managing our tenancies.

What is meant by a C3 score?

The Housing Regulator has scored the evidence it received from us on a range from C1 to C4. C3 means that they confirm the need for improvements to be made, and we will be working closely with the Regulator to demonstrate that we are making those improvements to your homes.

What do you mean by improvements?

We mean improvements to the way we deliver our Housing Service, which includes our processes and methods of recording and reviewing our actions.

What is the timescale for the improvements to be made?

We expect to have the necessary improvements made in 18 months – 2 years.

How will we know when you have improved the score?

We will keep in touch with you regarding our progress in our newsletter and on our website.

Why has there been another referral to the Housing Regulator in less than a year?

We would like to reassure you that your health and safety is important to us. We have proactively reviewed our Housing Service to ensure we are following the new consumer standards and doing all we can to support the new regulations. We continue to look for ways to improve our service, and this referral has provided us with the framework to move forward with the necessary changes.

Is this separate to the previous housing audit, which you wrote to me about last year?

Yes it is. Last year’s audit was about Housing Compliance and how we were recording and evidencing our health and safety checks in your homes. We have been following our comprehensive action plan and anticipate that we will have addressed the areas raised in that audit by the end of this year. This year’s review looked at how we were doing against the new Social Housing Regulations introduced earlier this year, which focused on our complaint handling and how we managed our resources to address any risks.

Will my rent go up to cover all these improvements?

No, there will not be a rent increase.